


Easy

by Nyssa



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-27
Updated: 2010-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:18:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Progression of a partnership.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy

**I.**

It was so easy, being friends with Hutch.

Not that Starsky had ever had trouble making friends. He had a decided knack for it. But with Hutch, it wasn't even like being friends, really. It was more like finding the vital missing piece of a puzzle, with the puzzle being Starsky's own life.

Even though they had little in common besides a determination to graduate from the Academy and join the Bay City Police Department, they hit it off immediately. Hutch charmed him, with his serious face that crinkled easily into a smile; his choked laughter at Starsky's mumbled commentary on the instructors' lectures; his earnest study habits that kept him up in their shared room long after Starsky had fallen asleep and sometimes compelled him to walk blindly through the corridors, nose buried in a book and narrowly avoiding crashing headlong into exasperated classmates. Starsky had pegged him at first as being _too_ serious. But he wasn't. He liked to have fun, liked to drink beer, liked girls, liked Starsky. He was even delightfully ticklish. Starsky discovered that the night before graduation, when they'd celebrated a bit too hard at the bar around the corner and had to lean on each other all the way back to the room, and Starsky didn't have his key, so he was forced, _forced_ , to pat Hutch down for his. Hutch giggled helplessly, hands against the cinderblock wall, legs spread, gasping, begging Starsky to stop, _please_ , so he could breathe.

Starsky found the key, in Hutch's hip pocket, too soon.

 

*****

 

 **II.**

It was so easy, touching Hutch.

It came so naturally that he never hesitated. He never worried what Hutch might think of him. He knew, somehow, that it was all right.

At first it was the occasional pat on the back, a hand resting on a shoulder, nothing out of the ordinary. It didn't become a habit until they were partnered together. At that point, Starsky discovered very quickly that he needed it. He didn't consider himself a particularly touchy-feely person (unless he was drunk; he knew he tended to become a shade too cuddly then). He didn't favor, or offend, other people with random caresses, but Hutch wasn't other people. Starsky told himself it was because Hutch was his partner. It was only right to feel extraordinary closeness with the man who held your life in his hands, who placed his own body between yours and danger. Only right to need to touch him, feel his solid warmth, remind yourself that he was alive and whole, and that as long as he remained that way, so would you.

He touched Hutch's arms, his face, his hair. Sometimes he rested a hand on Hutch's thigh. He walked close to him, brushing shoulders. That last could feel weirdly intimate once they were no longer in uniform, because Starsky wore his gun under his right arm, Hutch under his left, and if he was walking at Hutch's left side they could sometimes feel each other's weapons. Starsky found it comforting.

Hutch returned the touches. At first that surprised Starsky. Then it delighted him, and after that it was necessary. He found himself almost holding his breath sometimes, trying to anticipate the next time Hutch would clasp his arm, pat his belly, gently slap his butt. Some of those touches calmed him when he needed it; some of them sent small, tingly shocks along his nerves. Some simply made him glow inside.

 

*****

 

 **III.**

It was so easy, loving Hutch.

For a long time, he thought it was all he needed. He loved working with Hutch, eating with him, arguing with him, double-dating with him. He loved irritating Hutch. He loved making him smile so much he found himself going to ridiculous lengths of foolishness to elicit those smiles. He loved watching Hutch, surreptitiously, from behind sunglasses or over the tops of newspapers, at first to memorize the shifting expressions that took up residence on Hutch's face, and later, when memorization had long since been accomplished, simply because it gave him pleasure. He loved the jokes, the pool playing, the beer drinking, the long, sleepy conversations in the Torino when it was three in the morning and the stakeout began to look like a lost cause. Most of all, he loved feeling like one half of a whole. He loved being known, and knowing in return. It was as though, in some inexpressible way, he and Hutch filled in the gaps in each other's souls. He actually thought that, and was amazed at himself. Maybe Hutch had made him a poet, too.

Desire was part of it, but Starsky didn't dwell on that. He didn't want to fuck things up. He didn't think about it -- why should he? He wasn't gay -- but sometimes he dreamed about it. He couldn't help that, but he hated it just the same. He hated it because it was a snake in his garden, an ugly worm of discontent. Without the dreams he was happy. After them he felt hollow, restless, hungry. Greed took the place of serenity, and looking at Hutch became like looking at the sun. The pain outweighed the delight.

But it didn't happen too often, and he managed to stamp it out when it did. Nobody could have everything, and he had more than anyone had a right to expect. How many people get to work, play, almost live, with the person they love most in the world?

Then one night, Hutch kissed him. Starsky didn't think he meant to. They were joyful, giddy, soaring on adrenaline after a chase, a shootout, a big, long-awaited bust. Starsky could see the high in Hutch's eyes. It pushed his own high higher, and when Hutch suddenly leaned in and brushed his lips over Starsky's, the wanting pulled Starsky under in an instant. He buried his fingers in Hutch's hair, felt Hutch's arms go around him like a man grabbing at a lifeline, and he knew, right then, that he'd been wrong. Sometimes you _could_ have everything.

 

*****

 

 **IV.**

It was so easy at first, sleeping with Hutch.

It was so simple when they began it, so perfect. He couldn't imagine why they hadn't done it years earlier. Why hadn't he told Hutch how he felt? Why hadn't Hutch said something? What the hell was there to worry about? Nothing. Not a thing in the world.

They spent nights at his place, or at Hutch's. Sometimes, for the hell of it, they went to no-tell motels on their meal breaks (reckless, certainly; they knew better, but the thrill of it proved impossible to resist). They necked in the car if it was dark, felt each other up under the table at the Pits (Huggy wasn't easily shocked), dropped their pencils in the squad room so they'd have an excuse to duck under the desk for a quick kiss. They tried to be careful, but it was easy, so very easy, to get carried away.

They fucked, hard and hot and wild. Starsky couldn't believe how much he loved it, Hutch's weight on his back, Hutch's cock battering him, Hutch's voice gasping his name, moaning, begging, as if he and not Starsky were the passive recipient. It amazed Starsky, the power of it, the way he could flex his muscles, roll his hips, press backwards just so, and reduce his partner to helpless, pleading desperation. Not that he wasn't just as desperate. He was. Sometimes he was sure the only thing that kept the ugliness of the streets bearable was the anticipation, the knowledge that sooner or later they could go home, close the door, and Hutch would take him, fuck him hard, the steely cock scrubbing away the dirt, leaving him clean again.

He knew Hutch felt the same, that he often needed it even more. He worried about Hutch, about the aching neediness that had always been there, buried inside, but that now seemed to stick out all over him. Starsky didn't see how he could ever quench that bottomless thirst. And the way Hutch looked at him, like a starving wolf or something. It frightened him, their mutual dependence. Not just for friendship, safety, protection; that was old stuff. Now they demanded everything of each other. How could anyone live up to that? It wasn't enough anymore, the laughter, the gentle touches, the quiet arm around the shoulder. Not nearly enough. The sex wound everything up so much tighter, made everything so much more intense. Starsky would never have imagined they'd actually fight over who would get to bottom. _Get_ to, not have to. Sometimes the whole thing was like stepping into some weird parallel dimension. Hutch said they never should have started this, that they should have known it was crazy, dangerous, too damn hot to fuck with -- but since he said it between ecstatic yells while Starsky was ramming him up against his living room wall, Starsky didn't pay much attention.

It went on, and on, and gradually everything began to take on an edge, a frisson, a tension they couldn't seem to control. They struck sparks off each other everywhere. They burned each other up. Anything from a heat wave to a stalled engine became a reason for a shouting match. They'd stalk around the squad room, seething, until Dobey yelled at them to work it out or not come back in the morning. They worked it out the only way they knew how, in bed. They'd be close again, good together again, because the sex always made everything better, until it started making everything worse. Hutch said they could do with a little less passion, and though Starsky knew what he meant, he still snapped back angrily, defensively. Did Hutch want to call it off, then? Did he, huh? Hutch didn't answer.

Things got twisted. Starsky slowly began to suspect, for no reason he could have articulated, that Hutch was laughing at him. He noticed it in the car, could almost hear the silent derision coming from the passenger seat, but when he turned sharply to look, Hutch was always looking out the window. He retaliated one day by slamming on the brakes so hard he almost sent an unprepared Hutch through the windshield. Hutch went home defiantly alone, that night and for a month of nights thereafter. Starsky found girls, flaunted them in Hutch's face, rattled on endlessly about getting laid. Hutch said nothing, nothing at all for days, until he finally grabbed Starsky by the shirt front, practically lifting him off his feet, and told him if he really wanted to get laid, be at Venice Place that night. Since that was the whole point of the exercise, Starsky was more than agreeable, though he told Hutch to go fuck himself. When he got to Venice Place, Hutch wasn't home. Starsky stormed over to the Pits, half expecting to find his partner there smirking at him, but no Hutch. He got drunk, but not too drunk to make it with Huggy's new waitress, in the alley on her break.

He had no idea what was happening, or why. He was by turns bewildered, furious, wildly aroused, and so hurt he was terrified he was going to cry in front of Hutch, something it had never occurred to him to worry about before. They still fucked. It was so raw it drove him crazy. It didn't matter who was on top anymore; either way, they clawed at each other like animals. He dreaded it now almost as much as he craved it, the heat and the sweet pain and the frantic hunger in Hutch's eyes. At least it was peaceful afterwards. Hutch would fall asleep beside him, and the lines on his face would smooth out, and Starsky would stroke his hair and remember. Or he'd fall asleep first, and wake to find Hutch watching him with soft, wistful eyes, like a man visiting a fondly remembered home he hasn't lived in for years.

Gradually, though, it slowed. Eventually, it stopped. They found other ways to occupy their nights.

Neither of them ever exactly said it was over. They knew each other far too well to have to.

 

*****

 

 **V.**

It was easier, in a way, not sleeping with Hutch anymore.

He felt calmer, steadier. He didn't veer wildly from ecstasy to misery, from heart-clenching love to unreasoning anger. He breathed easier, got more sleep, experienced a kind of numbness, like a stunned survivor of some natural catastrophe. When he wasn't actually with Hutch, he felt almost normal.

It was harder, much harder, in other ways. They were still partners, of course, and they had to work together regardless. At first, the tension was painful. They rarely touched anymore, unless they had to. They didn't look at each other much. Starsky, for his part, was afraid to. He couldn't look into Hutch's eyes now without being assailed by a wave of conflicting emotions he didn't want to feel and certainly didn't want Hutch to see. He tried not to care what Hutch did with his spare time, where he went, who he slept with. But he couldn't ignore him, either. Pretending his partner was just another guy he worked with was absurd, impossible. He had to love Hutch enough to die for him, but not enough to be _in_ love with him. Once, for a while, he'd been able to walk that line. Now he couldn't even see it.

He tried desperately not to miss Hutch, and had no luck at all. He'd go home after work and drift around his apartment, his body still expecting Hutch's touch, his ears still tuned to Hutch's voice. He told himself it was nuts. He'd gotten along for years with no Hutch in his bed, hadn't he? He still saw him every day, rode with him, talked to him, did everything they used to do. Only now they did it self-consciously, awkwardly, artificially. It was forced. The ease was gone. He felt choked, smothered by the politeness of it all. He wanted to rip a hole in that suffocating blanket so he could breathe again.

They couldn't really stay apart, of course. They drifted together, aimlessly, without trying. Starsky still found himself turning up on Hutch's doorstep. It was such an ingrained habit he just couldn't break it. He'd drop in, they'd have a beer, watch TV, read the paper silently together. Sometimes Hutch talked about his greenhouse. They played pool with Huggy, it being easier, often, to have a third person as buffer. Hutch called him sometimes, not about work. Often Starsky could tell he didn't have a real reason. They'd talk carefully about things that didn't matter much and then Hutch would give him an awkward goodbye and hang up. Hutch sounded lonely, Starsky thought, and the realization tugged at his heart because he was lonely, too, and that thought sent him straight to his little black book.

He liked Kira enough to dial her number repeatedly. She was fun, she was pretty, she was good in bed. She made no demands on him. She was a blond cop, and he could talk to her about the job. He found that ironically amusing. But he didn't take it seriously, or feel anything more complicated than mild affection for her, until the first time he saw Hutch flirting with her. In an instant, the muted emotional life he'd led for the past year evaporated and he sank over his head into a swamp of rage, jealousy, and hurt so powerful it was an effort to remain standing.

He knew Hutch would sleep with her. He felt it; it was inevitable. He waited for it, waited for Hutch to ignore his warnings, anticipated it with a peculiar, self-pitying eagerness. He even told Hutch he loved Kira, watching his face avidly for the reaction, pushing, prodding for it. By the time he found them together, he'd almost forgotten about Kira. His whole being was focused once more on Hutch. He couldn't wait to beat the hell out of him. And he knew, somehow, that Hutch couldn't wait for it either. It was almost, in fact, as if he'd planned it.

They had sex that night. They hadn't in almost a year. They were still shaking with anger and fright and the aftereffects of adrenaline overdose following the grenade incident, and they couldn't keep their hands off each other. They had to do it, had to make it stop somehow, snap the excruciating tension, put an end to the state of suspended animation they'd been living in, quit pretending they didn't give a fuck. _Finish it one way or the other, just fucking finish it_. It was the only thought in Starsky's mind as Hutch's clutching hands bruised him, as their bodies slammed together, as his teeth scored Hutch's shoulder at climax. The fight, as it turned out, hadn't amounted to much. The sex did.

Starsky woke the next morning aching all over, exhausted, limbs leaden, but with a peaceful heart and a head as clear as -- well, as clear as it had been the very first morning he'd ever awakened in Hutch's arms. When he knew without the faintest doubt that there was nothing wrong, nothing, nothing in the world.

He couldn't have said how he knew, exactly, but he did. They belonged nowhere but with each other. He could no longer make sense of any other possibilities. Fighting it hadn't helped. Starving it hadn't helped. He knew when he was beaten. He hoped Hutch did.

He lay still for a long time, watching Hutch's sleeping face, considering what he would say to quell all the doubts Hutch would have, all the reasons his mind would invent why this couldn't be as simple as it seemed, all the worries, all the fears. But when Hutch woke up, Starsky didn't say anything, because Hutch just kissed him, over and over again.

And over and over again.

 

*****

 

 **VI.**

It was easier now, easier than it had been the first time around, easier by far than he could ever have dreamed.

They made each other laugh again, for one thing, and God, what a relief that was. So sweet to be able to joke, and kid, and horse around again. So beautiful to see Hutch smile, or see the exaggeratedly serious expression he put on when he was trying not to smile. They could talk again, really talk, and it was so good to not have to watch his words, dance around everything he longed to say, monitor every verbal interaction for fear of metaphoric landmines. It was like ice breaking up inside Starsky's chest, like taking a deep, deep breath after almost drowning.

They touched more, just as they'd done for so long, little affectionate touches that were safe for public consumption, and every time it happened Starsky had to fight an impulse to make it unsafe, to pull Hutch into a ferocious hug complete with murmured love words and welling tears. Idiotic, but he didn't care. If he only could have, he'd have given Dobey, IA, and all of Parker Center a soapy scene to end all soapy scenes. And he knew, from the throat-clearing and the way Hutch glanced quickly away from him at such moments, that his partner would have been right there with him.

And the sex. Oh, the sex. It had lost, thank God, the frantic desperation, the insanity, the maddening angst. He was no longer afraid he couldn't give Hutch everything he needed, or that his own hunger to be clean would be more than Hutch could deal with. They didn't worry about those things now. They knew what it was like to lose it, and they were careful, so careful.

They kissed slowly, fed each other grapes, turned off all the lights and swayed in each other's arms to the soft sounds of Hutch's jazz records. They drank just enough to get silly, and rolled around on the bed laughing and singing "I Got You, Babe." They licked each other all over, seeing how long it took to come from nothing but the gentle caresses of a soft, warm tongue.

And they took turns tying each other to the headboard and fucking like feral tomcats until they spiraled into exhausted oblivion. That was good, too.

But it wasn't scary anymore. It was just beautiful.

It was the certainty, more than anything, that was different. Nothing else in their lives had really changed. The streets were a nightmare, as always. Scumbag perps; devastated crime victims; dead-eyed junkies; hookers who belonged at junior high sock hops, not on street corners. Same old, same old. But the certainty was there now. The knowledge, sure and steady, that nothing, nothing was worth giving up what they had. They'd tried that, and they hadn't liked it.

 

*****

 

 **VII.**

It was easier to be in a coma than it was to be Hutch.

Starsky missed all the exciting stuff. When he was finally, finally aware enough to understand, they told him about it. The three bullets, the cardiac arrest, the endless days of unconsciousness, the terrified friends keeping vigil at the window.

But all he could think about was Hutch. Hutch, who said less about it than anyone else. He seemed interested in nothing but the future, Starsky's recovery. He told Starsky about the case, about Gunther's arrest, about the links in the chain falling like dominoes, gave him an update every time there was one, but Starsky could tell it was only out of habit, out of a sense of obligation. Hutch didn't want to talk about that. He didn't want to talk about the hit, either. His eyes went distant, his voice flat, whenever Starsky asked about it. And Starsky didn't ask at all about what had happened afterward, before he woke up. Dobey and Huggy had described it to him, and he was glad, so fucking glad, he hadn't seen Hutch like that. He'd gotten off easy. He'd done nothing but sleep, really. For Hutch, it might as well have been the end of the world.

He lay in bed -- his hand covering Hutch's, waiting for the latest dose of painkillers to kick in, trying not to take deep breaths -- and he thought about that. There'd been nothing Hutch could do to help him. If he'd killed Gunther and every member of his organization, that wouldn't have helped. It wasn't like the time Starsky had watched Hutch dying of the plague. He'd been able to do something; he'd had a plan of action. He'd brought Callendar in, and his blood had saved Hutch's life. Nothing Hutch could have done this time would have saved Starsky's.

Hutch couldn't stand something like that again. Starsky knew it, just as he knew he couldn't himself. That was the downside of letting someone else's life become more important to you than your own. Starsky recognized that, but he felt no regret.

He'd quit. And when he did, he knew, Hutch would quit too. He wouldn't have to, Starsky would never ask him to, but he would. They could do something else, anything else. Become wandering folksingers. Something.

He looked at Hutch, asleep in the chair beside him. He could see the faintest hint of silver in the bright gold hair.

He raised Hutch's hand, very carefully, and kissed it.

 _Me and thee. Me and thee_.


End file.
